Then the Other

 Yeah, continuing.

 

Fontana (2003)

The follow up by the National Splits.

More of the same and more.

First One

 Yeah, continuing from where we left off

It's the National Splits.

The National Splits (2002)

So this is the first of the umpteen bands in this orbit that I heard.
They have a lovely little tune on the "Crayola Catastrophy" 7" compilation on Kitteridge that I posted a while back.

A bit more guitar oriented than Mathlete. Still the lo-fi indiepop you know and love. Still running all the vocals through some kind of effect for virtually every song.
It's still difficult for me to grasp that this is over twenty years old now.

Welcome to the underground at the turn of the 21st Century.

This One Goes Deep

 But you're going to have to do the grunt work yourself.

I'm going to pour myself a drink.

Telstar Parthenon (2000)

So yeah, Mathlete.

It's a lo-fi project spearheaded by Mike Downey who had previously been in Wolfie along with the couple who would go on to make records as the Like Young until their divorce and who also had recorded under the moniker Busytoby whose two singles I've previously posted.

Mathlete then turned into the National Splits. (which may or may not follow up this post. I don't know yet.) and the rest is all ashes.

Mike Downey maintains an Audio Graveyard on Bandcamp for all his projects. Go and literally pay some respects.

Firsts

 Yeah, first off, I need a shower.

I'll toss a few in the queue and it's off to the bath for me.

Otherwise here's the first full length of several by Sleepyhead

 

Punk Rock City USA (1992)

More of that noisy distorted pop music in a longer playing format.

Here it's a compact disc from my personal collection.

If I didn't already know what to expect, I'd probably have skipped it based on the cover which is an abomination.

And that's even after knowing that it was released on Slumberland Records which is a label whose releases I generally enjoy.

Yeah. Put it on.
Don't look at the cover.

But also, before I forget.

Sleepyhead still exist in one form or another and play live and have a couple of brand new tunes up on their Bandcamp page as well as some other albums for download. ("Future Exhibit Goes Here"is a compilation of remastered versions of the records that followed this one.) 

Go nuts, kids. 

Let them feel the love.
 

Oops. I Did It Again.

 I wasn't even trying.

Songs About Our Past (Part I) (1996)

It's the Thirteenth of the month.

And it's actually a Sunday. 

It's only appropriate that I post a compilation on Sunday Records.

Tracklist on Discogs for the curious.

Indiepop from the first half of the 90s.

Almost half the disc is previously unreleased tracks. 

Keep it handy for tomorrow.

Wake Up!

 Letting things skate a bit here lately. Let the queue run dry.

Getting a bit lost in looking at new cars. The 17 year old one that she bought for $2500 already with 170+k miles on it is reaching a point where I don't feel like it's worth putting any more money into after about five years of driving. I'm feeling like we've already gotten our money's worth out of it, but it's time to update to something more recent and modern.

So many fucking options. So many opinions. Reviews. Sources.

Normally I'd be scouring the used market since I well know that value depreciated significantly the moment you drive it off the lot, but the market is really really fucking tight right now and the price of newer used vehicles is not significantly less than new ones. So with that in mind I'm figuring that I may as well buy a new one. But even those are hard to come by with the chip shortage and all that crap, so it looks like I'm going to have to order what I want through the dealer. Which is certainly a weird situation to be in, but here we are.

Which has nothing to do with anything except that I got up earlier than usual this morning and I'm still a little groggy this many hours later despite two espressos.

You might say I'm a "Sleepyhead"

Play (1990)

Sleepyhead.

Their first bleat straight from the basement of NYU and produced by Kramer of Shimmy Disc/Bongwater/Shockabilly fame and who I think is a much better maker of records than Albini ever was or will be.

There. 

It needed to be said.

Oh yeah, Sleepyhead. Noisy pop music with boy/girl voices.

 

 Fairyboat (1991)

This is the second single and more of the same.
It's one of those sounds that really encapsulates a time for me.
While the rest of everybody was sniffing Teen Spirit for the first time I was here.
This isn't life changing music, but it's, at least for me, kind of like sonic comfort food.
It's good enough and lingers with a pleasant nostalgia on the palate, but not necessarily going to be what I'm humming tomorrow. I will tap a foot while it's playing though.

Sometimes that's more than enough.

Got Messed Up There

 I got the two blogs out of sync over the holidays.
Shit is fixed now and will continue in the proscribed intervals with an all too regular schedule forever and ever until somebody gets their panties in a bunch and I get shut the fuck down by the Man.

Fuck the Man.

Burn it Down

1997 - Johan

A Dutch band who called their band Johan.

Another one that probably seemed like a funny idea at the time, but makes looking them up on the web a pain in the ass. 

You named your band the equivalent of John.Yeah, that's going to make it easy to find you online...

Anyway, we were talking about SpinArt records a couple of posts back. Here's another one.

The band themselves ended up recording three more, but this is the only one to get a US release which is a bit unfortunate for the indiepop lover at the heart of all of us. The Netherlands is too often overlooked in terms of the quantity and quality of the music that's been produced there over the decades.

Listen and learn.

I Don't Usually Do This

 Let's see how this goes...

(We Get There When We Do) (1995)

Now under normal circumstances I avoid posting major label things because 1) it's usually common trash and 2) I generally want to avoid drama from lawyers.

I'm going to make a bit of an exception here because it's good and long long OOP.

They got unceremoniously dumped by the label in a big, but probably short sighted in the long run deal at the end of 1996 where Warner Brothers cleaned house of a lot of indie type bands that weren't making million sellers like Celine Dion and the Spice Girls were.

So here it is.

They'd even recorded the follow up which was shelved.

And such is it in the cut throat cesspool that is the fucking music industry.